Finishing the Trail
by Kat Lee formerly Pirate Turner
Summary: The Seven pay witness to a very special, and spooktacular, event.  Death fic.  3rd in Will's 13 Days of Halloween series for Jack in year 2010.  Hints of Slash.


Title: "Finishing the Trail"  
Author: Pirate Turner  
For: My beloved Jack and our babies as a bit of a Halloween/Samhain/Anniversary present in this chaotic time of our lives  
Rating: PG  
Summary: The Seven pay witness to a very special, and spooktacular, event.  
Warnings: OW, Death fic, Mild Slash  
Word Count: 1,601  
Disclaimer: Chris Larabee, Vin Tanner, JD Dunne, Buck Wilmington, Josiah Sanchez, Ezra Standish, Nathan Jackson, Orrin and Mary Travis, and The Magnificent Seven are & TM CBS, The Mirisch Group, MGM, and Trilogy Entertainment, not the author. Everything else is & TM the author. The author makes absolutely no profit off of this work of fan fiction, and no copyright infringement is intended.

The seven men had walked out of the saloon in silence at closing time and had been pacing the main street of Four Corners ever since. All knew what to expect for the same thing happened in their little town every Halloween night, but none knew of the entity that would accompany the mysterious, haunting scene that night. Their people paid them to protect them, but none of them had a single idea how to protect them from the horror that came this night - or even if it was, in truth, the danger that its very appearance suggested.

Ezra nervously shuffled his cards back and forth in his talented hands, his placement in front of the saloon a silent testimony that he would keep the woman who slept inside safe. Chris and Vin walked down one side of the boardwalk while Buck and JD took the other. Josiah and Nathan waited on the steps of the church. A shutter banged against a wall somewhere within the sleepy town, and all seven men instantly drew their guns.

Ezra's gold tooth shone in the moonlight as he granted his friends a nervous smile. They had reacted too soon; they had pulled their guns against nothing more powerful, or wicked, than the wind itself. The men slid their guns back into their holsters, a silent breath of relief passing between them. Buck gave a nervous laugh even as JD silently edged closer to his best friend. Vin tipped his hat, and Chris and he walked closer together. Josiah pulled his Bible out of an inside pocket on his large, sweeping duster and began to read softly to Nathan.

A horse's whinny snapped all seven men to instant attention. They were on their feet and to the street in a single shared heartbeat, their guns drawn and at the ready lest the strangers should attack this time. A team of black stallions barreled down the dusty road. Flame breathed from their nostrils and sparked in their dangerous, black eyes. Men shouted as they whipped at their backs, but the whips passed through the horses.

Vin tightened his grip on his gun; only Chris silently placing his hand calmed the Texan's urge to run out into the streets. The blonde knew his lover hated seeing any animal abused and was well aware of the situation from which Vin had rescued his own horse, Peso. Yet the whips seemed to pass harmlessly through the panicked horses as they charged down main street.

Guns were fired, but the shots did not reverberate through the town. Instead they were barely heard. Ghostly apparitions sat on the bench and leaned out of the stagecoach's windows, firing behind them at a lone man on horseback. Moonlight twinkled on the gold star that that man wore as he continued chasing down the gang of men.

Josiah's strong voice picked up speed and volume as the horses continued running toward his church. The Preacher turned a page in his Bible and kept on reading, but if the ghosts were even in the least bothered by the scripture, they showed no signs. They only kept barreling down the road, tossing their heads, breathing fire, and flying on their hooves that flames also seemed to lick. The men shouted, and now, for the first time, their words could be heard plainly.

Something shifted in the air, and a voice spoke next to Chris, startling both Chris and Vin. They jumped back with wide eyes and stared in shock at their friend who had suddenly appeared, leaning against the post where Chris had just stood. "It's all right, boys," the Judge spoke from a thick cigar clenched in his teeth. "That's just my brother. He's been set on catching those hoodlums for a long time now."

Chris eyed the Judge, his own cheroot clenched between his white teeth. He swallowed hard around it and tried not to show the fear rising up inside him.

"Where ya been, Judge? We didn't hear anythin' 'bout ya comin' in." Vin's eye met Chris' in a silent message: Something was very much wrong here.

The Judge shook his head. A forlorn expression passed through his eyes that seemed darker and older than either man had ever seen him. "That's because nobody knew I was comin'. It's gotta stay hushed up, boys. Ya don't know anythin' 'bout this."

Chris slowly nodded. Vin tilted his hat. "Yes, sir." Yet still their eyes watched him warily. The hair on their arms had already risen when the ghosts had appeared, but now both men were tingling in their lower pits of their stomachs. Although they shared the unspoken agreement that something was wrong, neither knew what, and yet they also knew better than to inquire as to the Judge's personal matters.

Orrin smiled at his men. "Ya know, I had a good feelin' 'bout ya fellas when I first signed ya on, an' you've proven me right every step o' th' way. I'm leavin' this town, an' my daughter-in-law an' grandson, in the best hands possible."

"Thanks, Judge," Chris managed to speak, "but - " He fell silent when the Judge gave a single, simple shake of his head.

"Can't talk now," he told the guys. "One o' these days, we'll all catch up but not tonight. Right now, I gotta ride. My brother's been needin' my help fer far too long." He tipped his hat to all seven men, aware that the other five were also watching him warily from their posts, and stepped out into the road where the stagecoach and his brother had already passed.

The horses rounded the bend even as the Judge mounted a horse that none of the guys had seen before. To the surprise of the Seven, the Judge's horse wore no saddle, bridle, or even a blanket, and as the Judge mounted him smoothly, the horse reared up on his hind legs, kicked out his front hooves, and whinnied. His whinny carried throughout the town, rising citizens from their sleep, and echoed back onto the lonely street.

Then the rider and his mount were off, galloping after his brother who'd already disappeared into the distance, and as he rounded the same corner, cutting before the church, that his brother had taken, the Judge, too, vanished into thin air. In his wake, the Seven men gathered silently. They joined Chris and Vin where they had stood and exchanged their last few words with the Judge. Each man already had resheathed their guns in their holsters and held their hats in their hands.

"Chris?" Buck asked softly. "We just see what I think we saw, pard?"

Something gold and glittering winked up at the men in the pale moonlight. Silently Chris stooped, reverently picked up the object, and stood again. He then held up the item that the Judge had dropped so that all his friends could see clearly the sparkling star that the Judge had worn.

"Oh mah . . . " Ezra breathed shakingly. He tucked his hands into the pockets of his red jacket, loathe to allow any one, even the six men who could no more be his brothers than if the very same blood had ran through all their veins, to witness his trembling.

"Buck . . . " JD hissed, looking up into his love's wide, blue eyes with horror written plainly in his own big, brown orbs.

"It's okay, Kid," Buck whispered and hugged JD as Josiah began to recite once more from his Bible. The Preacher's brothers listened, their heads all bowed in respect for what they had witnessed here and the friend they understood they had lost.

* * *

The telegram came the very next day. Mary received it in the telegrapher's office, and her legs shook all the way as she carried herself to the saloon. She went up to the bar, and Inez gave her a questioning look as she ordered whisky. The Mexican senorita's hand softly touched the blonde woman's shaking fingers as she gave her a bottle. Mary downed it in a single gulp.

The guys had been waiting for her to come. They had not known when the news would come but had known that it would after the events they'd witnessed the previous night, and all had agreed silently to be there for her when their friend needed them the most. Now they walked to her, their boots falling silent upon the hard, wood floor.

Chris stood directly behind the reporter when she turned around. Her eyes were full of tears, and she struggled to explain as she waved the telegraph in front of them. "M-My f-father-in-in-l-law . . . " she stammered.

Taking pity on her, Josiah took the telegraph and read it aloud. The men bowed their heads. Mary all but fell into Chris' arms, and he gently stroked the back of the woman who he had come to care for like the little sister he had never had as she sobbed openly. Ezra took Inez's hand as a respectful silence fell over the saloon.

The seven valiant men who Orrin Travis had first hired to protect the town, his daughter-in-law, and his grandson exchanged knowing glances, but no one spoke a word of what they had bore witness to the night before lest their vision be dismissed as lunacy. Together they stood in honor and grief and mourned for the man they had all loved but who, at long last, had been allowed to continue his ride with his brother and bring to justice the fugitives they had hunted all those years ago.

**The End**


End file.
